The Wild Boers team appear in their club kit
The boys rescued from a flooded cave complex in Thailand have been regaling audiences with details of their ordeal during the days of their adversity. They were trapped in the cave for over two weeks before they could be brought out by rescuers. The team survived by drinking water dripping from stalactites as they huddled on a sandy bank 4.7 kilometres inside the cave.
The 12 boys and their 25-year-old coach appeared at a press conference in Chiang Rai dressed in their soccer club kit after they were discharged from hospital.
Said the coach :
“We took turns digging at the cave walls. We didn’t want to wait around until the authorities found us.”
Chanin Wiboonrungrueng, 11, the youngest member of the team, at the press conference
After nine days of fruitless digging in the dark, they heard the rescuers approach. At first they could not believe it.
Taking over from the coach, Adul Samon, 14, continued :
“We weren’t sure if it was for real. So we stopped and listened. And it turned out to be true. I was shocked.” He went down to meet the two divers, Richard Stanton and John Volanthen. “It was magical,” he added. “I had to think a lot before I could answer their questions.”
It was the discovery by the two divers that triggered the rescue effort that brought them all to safety over the course of three days, organised by Thai navy Seals and a team of cave-diving experts.
The team coach, who had lived as a monk in a Buddhist monastery, said that on the first night they were confident that the flood waters would recede by the morning. He said, “Before we went to sleep we prayed. I wasn’t worried or scared because [I thought] tomorrow the water will go down.” He added: “On the first day we didn’t feel anything but after two days we began to feel tired and weak.”
At the end, the boys, sedated and secured on stretchers, were removed from the cave.
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